BLUE DIVISION IS BLUE WITH COLD

Grey River Argus, 20 May 1942, Page 7

BLUE DIVISION IS BLUE WITH COLD

Statement of captured Private Eusebio Bellosillo, of the Ist. Battalion, 269th. Infantry Regiment of the “Spanish Blue Division” sent by Franco to the Soviet front:—

“Our division has lost about 8,000 men. Hundreds of our soldiers are suffering from frost bite and many of them have had their legs amputated.

“The 269th. Regiment, commanded by Colonel Esparase, has sustained particularly heavy losses. The soldi - ers call the Commander a murderer.” —From Soviet War News.

Priest Appeals to Red Army

When the Red Army entered Mozhaisk, a local Priest, Nikolai Dormibontov, brought to the headquarters of one of the units a statementsigned by 48 members of his congregation. This statement contains the following facts:—Tn Oc/tober, 1941, when the Germans captured Mozhaisk, they occupied the ancient Cathedral of St. Nicholas, in which they' installed an .observation post. Machine guns were set up in position and automatic rifle troops took over the building. The Cathedral, became the ibeene of massacres of the noncombatant population.

Dormibontov was summoned to the headquarters of the German command and ordered immediately to arrange a “thanksgiving service" on the occasion of the “victory of the German arms.” The Priest declined. He was brutally beaten and all future services were prohibited.-'

The church itself was closed and its entrance boarded up. Despite the prohibition, believers began to gather for prayers in one of the houses of the towrn. On Christmas Eve a detachment of German soldiers, commanded by a lieutenant, broke into the house where a service was pro 1 ceeding, dispersed the gathering and again beat the Priest. The Germans snatched all ikons from the walls and smashed them with their rifle butts.

The Priest, fearing for his life, fled to the forest, where he hid' for over two months with other people from the town. The Germans ransacked all the Mozhaisk churches. Before they retreated they' blew up the St. Nicholas Cathedral. —From Soviet War New's.